Mitt Romney Twitter Death Threats: Why America Looks Like It Is Starting to Fall Apart

“If George Bush wins, I’m moving to Canada.” These words used to be the liberal refrain when Democrats faced the prospect of losing an election. Oddly enough, no one ever moved, despite their assurances that their bags were already packed.

Those were the days. Now, a small number on the left have found another solution to the problem of a Republican victory: murder. The threats poured in after the first debate: “If Romney is elected, I'm going to assassinate him #sniperstyle.” Move over, Arab Spring — America has finally harnessed Twitter’s true potential.

Twitter blew up (not literally) with similar tweets. Despite the fact that their insanity is being broadcast from coast to coast, they have continued. As a result, state and federal law enforcement agencies have moved into high gear. The Department of Homeland Security has even publically condemned this development, labeling the inflammatory rhetoric “quite disturbing.”

Disturbing is an understatement. This is a terrifying development in our civic discourse. The threat of violence — the promise of murder — is now acceptable to a growing number of our fellow citizens. It makes one wonder: when did Democrats become the gun-loving party? Maybe this also explains why they’re so intent on gun control.

Luckily, many of the murderous tweeters were kind enough to tell us why they wanted to kill dear old Mitt: food stamps. His promise to keep the entitlement state small, affordable, and fair apparently hit a nerve — and a violent one, at that.

The connection between violence and entitlements is not a mistake. On the contrary, this public display of blood-lust is the necessary result of the welfare state gone awry.

Look no further than Europe for proof. As its welfare state has developed, its people have become ever more dependent on government’s benevolent help. Pensions, health care, paid vacation, social security, education — most European nations subsidize their peoples’ lives from birth until death. Barack Obama’s Life of Julia looks like a mere serf compared to her European counterpart.

Yet all is not well in Eden. As everyone from London to Athens knows, the European model is an unmitigated fiscal disaster. The inevitable spending cuts have been met by violence, riots, and anarchy. Greece leads the way; violent riots over cuts to entitlements and public services have persisted in the country for over a year. Similar violence (there are too many instances to list here) has been the order of the day in Europe for several years. The public cost of containing the mayhem is mounting. Sadly, so are the riots.

America is further along this path than we care to admit. The fiscal warning signs are all around us: $16 trillion in debt, successive trillion dollar deficits, the looming monetary shortfalls of Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. Our safety net has become a hammock.

Yet when Mitt Romney proposes to reform these ailing programs — not to destroy them, but rather to save them — some few beneficiaries of the government’s impossible promises look to a bullet rather than the ballot box. At least such vitriol hasn’t bled over from Twitter on to the streets.

It’s times like these where I want cling to both my gun and my religion. Perhaps these hooligans should consider doing the same, at least with the religion part. But religion is also under attack from the liberal entitlement state — just ask the Catholic Church. Then again, that a secular society has worked out quite well for the post-religious, debt-ridden, enlightened utopia of Europe, wouldn’t you say?